You couldn’t make it up, the singer says. At that moment readying for her comeback record in eight years, deeply enamored with her newish partner, and at long last the mother of a toddler after dealing with conception issues for a decade, on top of the world. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
The artist, birth name Jessica Cornish, is known for being brutally honest. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was meant as an candid account, dealing with every moment of pain she’d experienced since she last worked on songs (a gynecological condition, pregnancy loss, unsuccessful partnerships, psychological manipulation, suicidal thoughts) with typical candour. The first single, her single No Secrets, was dropped in April. But by then there remained a major undisclosed truth. Her diagnosis. Then second single, her song Living My Best Life, came out in late spring and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was thriving, while still secretly dealing with the disease. Subsequently she went public, and in July she had a mastectomy.
She gives me her best “Seriously?” look. “I come out with a song called No Secrets. I’m giving every interview, and they inquire, ‘So what’s new with you?’ and I respond, ‘Uh, nothing really’” she has just had to cancel tour dates because she’s awaiting reconstructive surgery.
We’re at a photography studio in London. She is dressed in a tan faux-leather coat, denim trousers with ornate white designs, cream boots and oversized specs. Imagine rocker vibe meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “As if I’m in the 70s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Easy Rider, I say, thinking of the film. “They used to call me that!” She grins. Cornish is sharp-witted, unfiltered and filter-free. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her standup debut soon. “I like entertaining. When performing I frequently joke about the fans.”
Personal Battles and News
Cornish was preparing for an performance at the Baftas when she noticed an abnormality. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an test, and they told me, ‘It appears fine; your breasts are normal.’ And I insisted, ‘However, it’s there. I’ve got an achy arm and pins and needles in my hands whenever I get up.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ It happened on March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was concerning she’d call on the Monday. By then she had convinced herself it was nothing. The way she tells it, it was simply too inconvenient to face illness when she had a busy schedule.
“Just two weeks before from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And the doctor messaged and said, ‘Are you free at six?’ And I assumed, ‘It’s virtual, probably routine.’ So I jump on the Zoom expecting it’s all going to be good, and she informs me, ‘You might want to sit.’ That sympathetic voice? And she says, ‘I regret to inform you but your test results have come back as aggressive cancer.’” How did you respond? “I said, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘My child depends on me.’”
Some men find me challenging due to my self-awareness
She found the surgery terrifying and absurd. “I hate being put under. They walk you down. In urgent cases you roll down in a bed, but this time I just strolled down with a hospital gown and my bum hanging out. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, Cornish says, she’s been lucky. No chemo, no radiotherapy, just the op. “It’s terrible, but you know what? Luckily it was detected early. I had the mastectomy a few months back and my affected breast now appears as a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “At least the nipple remains.”
The next operation is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “uneven. They didn’t do an implant as small as my original. How rude! I thought, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Amusingly I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got obsessive tendencies, and I know they’d never be flawless. My plans were disrupted.”
A History of Health Challenges
The singer is familiar with health problems. She believes her perspective on the cancer has been so upbeat because she’s experienced in health crises. They have often coincided with peak moments, acting as a reminder, or punch in the stomach, to make her recall not to assume everything is fine. “Truly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Enjoying yourself? Sit down.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside achievements for me; a serious or unusual issue has happened to my health.”
She reminisces to her childhood, already beginning starring in the West End in Whistle Down the Wind (she was selected at the age of nine years old). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I attended rehearsals intermittently on an intravenous line, and returning to the hospital at night.” She jumps ahead six years, and teenage Jess has become part of the trio the group while studying at the performing arts school. “I just got my first record deal, and I had a cerebral event. Then when I was ready to debut in recently I had a automobile accident and my voice box shifted and I lost my voice for a year.”
Oi, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. At just 17? She nods|agrees
